Thomas Etholen Selfridge was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army and the first person to die in an airplane crash. He was also the first active-duty member of the U.S. military to die in a crash while on duty. He was killed while seated as a passenger in the Wright Flyer, on a demonstration flight piloted by Orville Wright.
The United States Army Air Service (USAAS) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1918 and 1926 and a forerunner of the United States Air Force. It was established as an independent but temporary branch of the U.S. War Department during World War I by two executive orders of President Woodrow Wilson: on May 24, 1918, replacing the Aviation Section, Signal Corps as the nation's air force; and March 19, 1919, establishing a military Director of Air Service to control all aviation activities. Its life was extended for another year in July 1919, during which time Congress passed the legislation necessary to make it a permanent establishment. The National Defense Act of 1920 assigned the Air Service the status of "combatant arm of the line" of the United States Army with a major general in command.
The Northrop C-19 Alpha was a series of three aircraft purchased from Northrop by the US Army Air Corps in 1931. They were slightly modified versions of the civil Northrop Alpha Type 2.
Benjamin Delahauf Foulois was a United States Army general who learned to fly the first military planes purchased from the Wright Brothers. He became the first military aviator as an airship pilot, and achieved numerous other military aviation "firsts". He led strategic development of the Air Force in the United States.
The Wright Model A was an early aircraft produced by the Wright Brothers in the United States beginning in 1906. It was a development of their Flyer III airplane of 1905. The Wrights built about seven Model As in their bicycle shop during the period 1906–1907 in which they did no flying. One of these was shipped to Le Havre in 1907 in order to demonstrate it to the French. The Model A had a 35-horsepower (26 kW) engine and seating for two with a new control arrangement. Otherwise, it was identical to the 1905 airplane. The Model A was the first aircraft that they offered for sale, and the first aircraft design to enter serial production anywhere in the world. Apart from the seven machines the Wrights built themselves in 1906–1907, they sold licences for production in Europe with the largest number of Model As actually being produced in Germany by Flugmaschine Wright GmbH, which built about 60 examples.
Thomas Scott Baldwin was a pioneer balloonist and U.S. Army major during World War I. He was the first American to descend from a balloon by parachute.
The Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1907–1914) was the first heavier-than-air military aviation organization in history and the progenitor of the United States Air Force. A component of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the Aeronautical Division procured the first powered military aircraft in 1909, created schools to train its aviators, and initiated a rating system for pilot qualifications. It organized and deployed the first permanent American aviation unit, the 1st Aero Squadron, in 1913. The Aeronautical Division trained 51 officers and 2 enlisted men as pilots, and incurred 13 fatalities in air crashes. During this period, the Aeronautical Division had 29 factory-built aircraft in its inventory, built a 30th from spare parts, and leased a civilian airplane for a short period in 1911.
The Aviation Section, Signal Corps, was the aerial warfare service of the United States from 1914 to 1918, and a direct statutory ancestor of the United States Air Force. It absorbed and replaced the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, and conducted the activities of Army aviation until its statutory responsibilities were suspended by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The Aviation Section organized the first squadrons of the aviation arm and conducted the first military operations by United States aviation on foreign soil.
Frank Purdy Lahm was an American aviation pioneer, the "nation's first military aviator", and a general officer in the United States Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces.
Fort Omaha, originally known as Sherman Barracks and then Omaha Barracks, is an Indian War-era United States Army supply installation. Located at 5730 North 30th Street, with the entrance at North 30th and Fort Streets in modern-day North Omaha, Nebraska, the facility is primarily occupied by Metropolitan Community College. A Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve unit, along with an Army Reserve unit occupy the periphery of the 82.5 acres (33.4 ha) fort. The government deeded all but four parcels of the land to the community college in 1974.
The Douglas O-43 was a monoplane observation aircraft used by the United States Army Air Corps.
Beginning in 1908 and lasting until 1937, the U.S. Army established a program to operate airships. With the exceptions of the Italian-built Roma and the Goodyear RS-1, which were both semi-rigid, all Army airships were non-rigid blimps. These airships were used primarily for search and patrol operations in support of coastal fortifications and border patrol. During the 1920s, the Army operated many more blimps than the U.S. Navy. They were also used because they were not seen as "threats".
The F class of US Navy blimps comprised a single airship, built during World War I by Goodyear as one of a group of three small blimps offered to the US government. Two were purchased for the US Navy and one for the US Army. The Navy blimps were designated E-1, F-1, and the Army airship A-1. Classified as an "Experimental Engine Testing Dirigible." F-1 had the same envelope size as the E-1, due to the use of a tractor mounted 125 hp Union engine, the performance was different. F-1 spent its entire career at Hampton Roads. It was flown in both tractor and pusher configurations. It also may have been flown with a Curtiss OXX engine. F-1 was removed from inventory in November 1923.
British Army Dirigible No 1, christened Nulli Secundus was a Semi-rigid airship. First flown on 10 September 1907, it was Britain's first powered military aircraft.
Paul Ward Beck was an officer in the United States Army, an aviation pioneer, and one of the first military pilots. Although a career Infantry officer, Beck twice was part of the first aviation services of the U.S. Army, as de facto head of the flying section of the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps in 1911 and as a senior officer of the Air Service in 1920–1922. He is generally credited as being the first military officer to advocate an air force for the United States separate from the control of other branches of the Army.
Major Harold Geiger was US military aviator number 6, who was killed in an airplane crash in 1927. He was also a balloonist. Spokane International Airport is designated with the International Air Transport Association airport code GEG in his memory.
Vernon Lee Burge was an aviation pioneer. He was the first American enlisted man to be certified as a military pilot. After ten years as an enlisted man, Burge was commissioned during World War I and served the next 25 years as an officer.
The Lebaudy République was a semi-rigid airship built for the French army in Moisson, France, by sugar manufacturers Lebaudy Frères. She was a sister ship of the Patrie, the main differences between the two being in the dimensions of the gasbag and the ballonet. Although she was operationally successful, the République crashed in 1909 due to a mechanical failure, killing all four crew members.
George Edward Maurice Kelly was the twelfth pilot of the U.S. Army's Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps and the first member of the U.S. military killed in the crash of an airplane he was piloting. He was the second U.S. Army aviation fatality, preceded by Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge who was killed while flying as an observer in a Wright Flyer piloted by Orville Wright on 17 September 1908.
Townsend Foster Dodd was the first commissioned US Army aviator. As a University of Illinois graduate with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, he joined the Coast Artillery Corps and shortly thereafter became an aviator in the US Army Air Service. Dodd sat on many boards of review during the service's infancy and was one of the members who condemned pusher planes in favor of tractors. He served with General John Pershing on the Mexican Border where he set records for endurance flying. During World War I he was first assigned as the aviation officer of the American Expeditionary Force in 1917. He was later replaced by Colonel Billy Mitchell and was reassigned to the Bolling Mission.
